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Cisco Duo vs UserLock comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Duo
Ranking in Authentication Systems
2nd
Ranking in Access Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
116
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
UserLock
Ranking in Authentication Systems
28th
Ranking in Access Management
29th
Average Rating
10.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 4.8%, down from 9.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of UserLock is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo4.8%
UserLock1.1%
Other94.1%
Authentication Systems
 

Featured Reviews

Charles Slaustas - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Contractor at Insight global
Supports seamless authentication for users across multiple organizations and personal portals
The features I use in Cisco Duo include Duo Pushes to confirm my identity to the device, and eventually as MFA security was increased, I actually had to use exchange passcodes. Sometimes, I have to go into the site and get into Cisco Duo to retrieve the passcode, and many of them have been two-factor, where the sites send a passcode that I have to enter into Cisco Duo. It has been more of the latter. I have not seen issues with lagging or crashing on Cisco Duo's end; it was usually on the client end, often because someone set up a bad upgrade or there were connection issues with the Cisco Duo cloud through the administrative site.
Bill H. - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology at City Of Keizer
Affordable, easy to use, and integrates well with Active Directory
The product and service are already great as it is but if I could add one feature, I guess it would be nice to have another factor of authentication (two additional factors) like your phone and a token for example, for when people forget their phone at home. It’s not that I mind not having two factors, but I do get that question from time to time from some of our users who think it would be really useful. From what I’ve heard, they’re working on it and it should be coming in the next version so that’s great news.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Cisco Duo scales very well with the growing needs of my company; during COVID, when we had a higher number of users, there were no problems at all."
"Duo features benefit my company by making logins more secure and simpler. Everything is in one box, so we don't have multiple servers trying to do the same thing."
"I lead an IT organization that has a significant amount of technical debt, and we're not in a zero-trust architecture yet. I'm pushing in that direction. Duo helps me considerably with my identity in an environment where I don't have zero trust. It's helping me bridge the gap until I can build a zero trust architecture."
"The experience my clients have with Cisco Duo is mainly good, there are sometimes some problems, but not major ones, so it is a solid security product."
"I believe Cisco Duo is worth the investment, offering a good return on investment, as it is expensive but works very well without any downtime or high maintenance, and the support is also good."
"Regarding the stability and reliability of Cisco Duo, it is very good."
"It is really scalable. It is easy once you get an application in. You can import users from Active Directory and enroll users really fast."
"The ease of deploying Cisco Duo Security and onboarding has greatly benefited our customers."
"The most valuable features are two-factor authentication and real-time logon monitoring."
"We mainly implemented UserLock for multi-factor authentication, but the user login insights are also nice."
 

Cons

"Duo Security could be improved with the addition of more applications."
"There is always room for improvement."
"We have had instances where Duo Security stops working on a user's device, which we have fixed by uninstalling and then reinstalling it."
"The only issue I encountered was related to the expiration of Duo Unix versions below 2.0.3 on February 3rd."
"The new smart license model doesn't always work. It's very complicated."
"It is easy to use when logging in, but at times, there's a delay in getting the pop-up on a phone, requiring users to occasionally retry authentication depending on backend services."
"To improve Cisco Duo, the biggest consideration is the licensing standpoint; the most common issue I've found is customers not setting up the Active Directory sync properly, leading to inflated licensing usage when they try to delete inactive users that are still being charged."
"We have a 24 hour timer for our Duo cookie and we would like to reduce this to a shorter time when using Duo."
"I would like to see UserLock add the ability to automatically create a group policy in Active Directory. That might streamline the setup process."
"The product and service are already great as it is but if I could add one feature, I guess it would be nice to have another factor of authentication (two additional factors) like your phone and a token for example, for when people forget their phone at home."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, the solution has been very, very reasonable...Licensing is the last thing I think about Duo Security because it's so easy, and I had no problems with it."
"The pricing is pretty competitive. It's pretty cheap. Anybody can adopt it."
"I am not aware of the pricing. There are two departments, and I don't have any information about them."
"I haven't seen any information on the pricing in four years, so I can't comment on that."
"Cisco's licensing is always a bit complicated to understand, but the price is fair. It could be more expensive than others, but the way they integrate everything, it has a fair price."
"Cisco has the most expensive products because market leaders tend to charge a lot."
"I only need the solution for IT staff, which makes it relatively cheap. If I deployed it for the whole company, it would be costly, so it depends on the number of users. Duo Security is affordable compared to other products in the segment."
"It's very simple. Its price is fair. We use the hardware tokens as well. You get what you pay for. In terms of licensing, Cisco has very complicated products, but Duo Security was surprisingly easy."
"You will be hard-pressed to find better pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise54
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does Duo Security compare with Microsoft Authenticator?
We switched to Duo Security for identity verification. We’d been using a competitor but got the chance to evaluate Duo for 30 days, and we could not be happier. Duo Security is easy to configure a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?
Compared to other vendors, Cisco Duo is on the pricey end. However, the other vendors do not have the wide range of features that Cisco Duo offers.
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
Areas that have room for improvement in Cisco Duo include pricing, as Cisco is quite expensive, and the fact that Cisco Duo relies heavily on external identity providers such as Active Directory or...
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Also Known As

Duo Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Barclays, US Department of Justice, National Bank of Kuwait, Turkish Aerospace, New York Albany School District, Regtransfers, University of Kent, Camden City School District, Oklahoma City Public Schools, Bank of Cyprus, Detran-PE: Pernambuco State Traffic Department
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. UserLock and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.